LONDON.- Sotheby's Old Master & 19th Century Paintings auction saw Gustav Klimt and Ernst Klimt's Hanswurst Delivering an Impromptu Performance in Rothenburg soar to £2.2m / $2.8m (estimate: £300,000 – 500,000), 16 times more than its last appearance in Sotheby’s sale room, following a hot pursuit by six bidders. When last sold at auction 40 years ago, it made £140,000.

An iteration of Ernst Klimt’s, monumental decorative panel made for and adorning the grand staircase of the Burgtheater in Vienna, this easel version was started in 1892. In December of that year, Ernst – a talented and ambitious artist two years Gustav Klimt’s junior – died unexpectedly aged twenty-nine. This large-scale and highly detailed painting was completed by his grief-stricken brother (the Klimt family had also lost their father in July). During this time of emotional upheaval Gustav produced fewer works and this example is therefore a rare painting executed at the height of his successful Ringstrasse period. In the finished oil, some of the faces in the original ceiling composition have been replaced with new portraits of family members, including Klimt’s mother, sisters and his surviving brother Georg - to celebrate and immortalise them during a period of mourning.

The painting reveals Gustav’s commitment to his brother’s legacy, and his kindness in supporting his widowed sister-in-law Helene (née Flöge) and five-month-old niece. Signed Ernst Klimt by Gustav, it was exhibited under Ernst’s name in 1895 and sold to a private Viennese collector for 8,400 guilders.

As in the ceiling painting ‘Hanswurst’, a popular coarse-comic stock character of German-speaking impromptu comedy, holds a captive audience. With a comical look on his face he makes an overly dramatic gesture to himself. Set in a market square, the onlookers are in historical, eighteenth-century costume. The authenticity of the scene is enhanced by the accurate rendering of architecture and the quality of portraiture, featuring as it does both Klimt and Flöge family members.

It last appeared at auction at Sotheby’s in London in November 1984, and had remained in the same private collection since.

"This work is both incredibly touching as well as utterly unique: we also don’t know of any other times that this has happened, and so it is a record of a pivotal moment in Klimt’s life as a loyal brother. It is also super impressive in quality, with an almost photographic quality to the detail. Works from this period are extremely rare, let alone when accounting for the collaborative element, and so we were thrilled to see it find a new home this evening." -- Claude Piening, Sotheby’s Senior International Specialist for 19th Century European Paintings